


Run, Fatboy, Run

by MusicalLuna



Category: Psych
Genre: Gen, Originally Posted on Psychfic, Pre-Relationship, Weight Gain, exercise, for like 3 seconds at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-02
Updated: 2009-09-02
Packaged: 2019-03-13 08:52:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13567104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MusicalLuna/pseuds/MusicalLuna
Summary: Shawn's had one too many smoothies and it's up to Gus to rescue him from a life of pudginess.





	Run, Fatboy, Run

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dragonnan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonnan/gifts).



> For dragonnan, as an answer to her fantasy of pudgy!Shawn.

“You’re getting fat, Shawn,” Gus had said. (Well, actually, Gus had said, “I think we’ve been eating out too much”, but Shawn could read between the lines. His best friend was calling him fat.)

Shawn had scoffed and teased Gus until he had completely forgotten even making the offending remark. But that night when he got home, Shawn stood in the bathroom and stared at his belly. And as much as he hated to admit it, it _had_ gotten a little bit soft.

He prodded at it with a few fingers. He grimaced and covered the little bulge around his waist with his hands. Definitely soft.

This was so unfair.

~ * ~ 

The next morning he woke up to the sound of his best friend pounding on his front door. Gus had this annoying tendency to pretend he’d won discussions that Shawn had purposely avoided having.

That he was usually right made it even more annoying.

“We’re going for a run,” Gus said when Shawn answered the door.

“I only run when my life depends on it,” Shawn told him, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

“Go get dressed, Shawn. We’re going.” He waved a hand. “I have an hour and a half before I have to be at work.”

“What part of ‘only for my life’ did you misunderstand?”

Gus’ back straightened, his legs planting in a very Superman-like stance, and he tilted his chin upward. “We’re going, Shawn. Gripe all you want, but you’re coming.”

In the end Shawn went, but he dawdled just long enough to make Gus late for work.

~ * ~ 

Exercise, as it turned out, was really hard work.

After their second morning run (the first didn’t really count after all the trouble he’d taken to delay it), Shawn _ached_. His thighs in particular burned as though he’d filled his shorts with hot coals.

That soreness was only compounded when Gus introduced him that afternoon to their thrice-weekly weight-lifting sessions.

When he got home from the gym afterward and found himself faced with the flight of stairs up to his apartment, he nearly sat down and cried.

~ * ~

Coping with the new routine for the first few weeks was agony. Whenever Gus was forced to be his captive audience, Shawn whined and moaned and made a huge fuss about how _hard_ it was and how he seriously doubted torture was actually going to improve his figure. It was a fairly frequent occurance since they spotted one another when lifting weights at the gym.

As pay back (and because his goal was actually to live healthier) Gus took away sweets, fried foods, and Pizza Night.

“But Gus!” Shawn whined. “Weekly Hawaiian and a movie marathon!”

“You’ll thank me when you’re thin,” Gus told him, and tossed out Mario’s Pizza Palace brochure.

Shawn was miserable.

~ * ~

But then a funny thing happened.

The daily runs and the thrice-weekly workouts started being enjoyable, rather than just this side of bearable. Gus stopped forbidding certain foods. And he started to look _good._

The ring of pudge that had collected around his middle faded away and hardened, the lines of muscles in his arms and torso growing more defined. He certainly wasn't sporting an Arnold Schwarzenegger-type musculature, but he had trimmed up considerably. Plus, he felt _fantastic_.

But the moment when he knew it had all been worth it didn’t come until almost a year and a half later, when he found himself working a case where he had wound up running into the Pacific Ocean in the middle of winter.

“That was stupid, Shawn! Completely and utterly stupid,” Juliet said as they helped him perch his violently shivering body on the back of the ambulance.

“B-but n-n-necessary,” he replied.

“Arms up,” one of the paramedics said and Shawn lifted his shaking arms reluctantly.

His shirt was peeled off over his head and when it was pulled past his eyes, it revealed Juliet, eyes fixed on his chest, her lips slightly parted.

“J-J-J-Jules?”

She looked up, her cheeks filling with brilliant color, and Shawn grinned.

Totally worth it.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This story archived at http://www.psychfic.com/viewstory.php?sid=1824


End file.
